More than 100,000 people filled the giant Zocalo plaza in downtown Mexico City on July 1 for the third National Democratic Convention (CND) called by former mayor and center-left 2006 presidential candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador. Current president Felipe Calderon Hinojosa was officially declared the winner in the July 2, 2006 elections by a narrow margin in a victory not accepted by Lopez Obrador or his followers. In the July 1 gathering Lopez Obrador called on his followers not to compromise with Calderon, not to accept his program for "fiscal reform" and not to accept "reform" of the Law of State Workers Social Security and Services Institute (ISSSTE). (La Jornada, July 2)

Although huge, the demonstration was smaller than the three massive protests in the month following the 2006, culminating in a July 30 march that drew as many as 2.4 million. Meanwhile, Lopez Obrador's Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) fell back dramatically in local elections in the central state of Zacatecas on July 1, losing 14 of the 31 municipalities it had governed, including Zacatecas city, won by the National Action Party (PAN), and Fresnillo, the second largest city, won by the small leftist Workers Party (PT). The state PRD is split by rivalry between Gov. Amalia Garcia and former governor Ricardo Monreal, whose brother David Monreal headed the victorious PT line in Fresnillo. (LJ, July 3)

From Weekly News Update on the Americas, July 8

See our last posts on Mexico and the electoral crisis.